Gazing up at the towering cliff of a Norwegian fjord is to be reminded of the unstoppable power of nature.

Fjords were formed during the Ice Age as glaciers ground their way through the landscape to the coast. When the ice melted, sea water filled the huge valleys the glaciers had left behind.

Mountains around the fjords in Norway rise up to more than a thousand metres in places, and in some fjords the water is more than a thousand metres deep. That would have been a glacier two kilometres high. Imagine it.

On a day trip from Bergen we cruised through the narrow Nærøyfjord (on UNESCO’s World Heritage List) and Aurlandsfjord to reach the little village of Flåm, starting point of the famous Flåm Railway. This 20-kilometre track, from the bottom of the fjord back up to the mountains, is one of the world’s steepest standard-gauge rail lines.

It was a day of enjoying magnificent scenery, engineering excellence, and a close encounter with a Norwegian troll.